Dual Blades love...

I'd say all the sets have their ups and downs that need to be considered when building them with the only real general rule being 'Assassin's Strike from hide is, at best, highly optional'.

Kinetic Melee- From what I've heard, constant recharges of BU is the focus. I wouldn't lean too heavily on 100% crit on Burst because that may not always be there in the future. It's great except soon, it's AS will be normalized to animate at the same speed as the other AS moves (so it'll be slower). So put the ATO proc in AS, a Gaussian proc in BU and have fun with it.

Street Justice- No AS from hide, start use Crushing Uppercut when you get it. The ATO in AS is your best place and you'll never suffer from lack of AoE as you have more ST and as much AoE as every other Street Justice character.

Dark Melee- No Assassin's Focus from Touch of Fear but the other moves are great for building focus. I've found Shadow Maul to be particularly powerful once you get IOs to maximize it's numbers and at least 2 procs in it. It has the potential to 1-shot 5 2+ minions which is very worthwhile even with AoE stacking from epic pools. This set is probably the least affected by the change and yet one of the more potent. I've found the ATO in AS to work best then follow up with another Midnight Grasp or Siphon Life (Shadow Maul if you've got minions lined up). The appeal here is, much of its damage is negative crits which aren't resisted [EDIT] often so always results in big numbers.

Spines- I haven't gotten an ATO proc to test on this one but not sure if the proc being in AS is best. First and foremost, I'd say slotting it for best values to utilize as a fast ST attack is best...AF is just a bonus. The proc would have to somehow come before either Impale or maybe Spine Burst for the extra crit. I'd say Placate may still be useful as an extra means of AoE burst on top, making it 3 50% crit AoEs...probably used before Fling Spines...but the ATO proc seems like it'd matter less for the set.

Haven't tried or heard from any Elec stalkers so no idea...

I'm thinking though, Dual Blades is probably one of the more versatile sets after the change. I'd probably skip the combos that start you with AS from hide and just use them after an alpha attack instead. Sweeping is a ridiculous attack, basically amounting to a Soaring Dragon (kat) but in a cone and 1kcuts is better than a cone Disembowel. Putting those attacks as your out-of-hide attacks wouldn't be bad, just not 100% criting. I can't even say putting the ATO in Assassin's Blade is the best choice...it's possible that it's better in something else. But in an extended fight, I'm wondering if perma-Empowerment combo is at all possible or decent...it's a 20% dmg buff for 20sec so you'd have to get BU to 20sec. Use IOs to collect damage bonuses and you could potentially stand at 50-60% dmg buff all the time with occasional 10sec spikes of 130% dmg buff. Also taking advantage of Ablating having a 10ft radius AoE to check for procs and you can make DBs strong for AoE while still being decent for ST (if not great).

I think Katana/BS and MA is probably the worse off than DBs. At worse, DBs just has to redefine its direction but those other 3 sets don't have as many options available.

Oh, Elec Stalker is excellent. :P The new change fills Elec's hole perfectly.

Regarding Street Justice, have you tested the ATO in AS because it is still broken on my character. AS intermittently turning into the slow-mo version and CU rarely getting a critical after AS. I usually have the ATO slotted in SB and works out a lot better for me.

If you ever used the combos before on a stalker you are doing it wrong. Due to the way those powers were setup aside from sweep none of the combos are worth doing. Its even worse now with the changes. My hope is the devs revamp this set in issue 23 along with MA and EM so that they work better.

I agree.

I rolled up an Electric/Energy stalker in anticipation of the changes and hit level 18 in record time (for me at least, I don't play that many hours a week and hop toons a lot)

I've been enjoying it so much that he will be the character I focus on for 2xp weekend.

The only issue I've encountered is using AS out of hide seems to burn through end really fast. It will be resolved as I level and get IOs on him, but it's kind of annoying at the moment. Nothing a tray full of blues can't solve, but I'd rather carry reds.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.